


Outside the Box

by stardust_made



Series: The I Know the Steps Series [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Love, M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gift-exchanges for Mycroft and Greg's first Christmas together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outside the Box

**Author's Note:**

> Written for thesmallhobbit and 1_mantissa for the Christmas prompts festival over at my Livejournal. Set in the same verse as "I Know the Steps", but can be read as a stand-alone. Beta by the fantastic disastrolabe.

The man is impossible to shop for. His taste is impeccable, of course, which makes it easy to get things wrong. Even worse is the fact that he isn’t exactly short on things. The only reason Mycroft Holmes doesn’t have something is either because he doesn’t want it or because he doesn’t yet know he wants it. At the moment, for the sake of Christmas, Greg would much rather they were both poor as a pair of church mice. For Greg, any deficit—of funds, of options, of time only spurs him into a grim resolve. Perhaps if he weren’t prepared to mortgage his soul to buy Mycroft a really good present it would be easier to think of one. As things stand, he is stumped.

To some extent he has himself to blame for leaving things until the last moment. Part of it is his natural tendency to go with the flow and simply let his work carry him through the days. He’s wondered privately if this isn’t just his way to avoid stopping. Stopping means thinking, spending time with yourself, all that stuff they like to discuss at personal development training.

A big part of his unpreparedness is also the lack of habit. He hasn’t had anyone to celebrate Christmas with for seven years. You just forget about presents and decorations, about what you’re going to do with your New Year’s Eve.

But now he has Mycroft. _Mycroft_ he can’t possibly forget about—Greg feels like he thinks about Mycroft even when he’s thinking about other things. But the thrill of it, coupled with the quiet contentment of being in a functional relationship, must have sidelined the more practical aspects of the situation. Such as gifts.

First, Greg actually started listening to the adverts on TV. Then he began paying attention to his colleagues’ chatter about their choices of presents for loved ones. He even made some time for shopping. It’s not that he dislikes shopping. In fact, shopping is one of the very few aspects in which his bisexuality conforms to some stereotypes—or at least the gay part of it conforms to the stereotypes about gay men: Greg has always enjoyed a good browse in the shops, as long as they aren’t too crowded. It’s just that with his job he’s rarely been relaxed enough to look around a store without constantly keeping an eye out for shoplifters and pickpockets.

And besides, it isn’t much fun shopping on your own.

He allocated time to shopping for Mycroft’s present but he spent most of it wishing he were shopping _with_ Mycroft instead. Greg caught himself imagining what Mycroft would say or where he’d wrinkle his nose or where he’d stop with an expression of quiet appreciation. On top of that, he’s just missed Mycroft, plain and simple—the shopping hours had to fit into Greg’s time off and so much of that usually belongs to Mycroft.

It seems there is nothing to buy for a man who has everything. In a shop on Carnaby Street Greg finds a small, shiny brass tool in a deliberately tacky box. The tool’s purpose is…to clean one’s belly button. It’s right next to the pubic hair comb. Right above the shelf is a label that reads, _Gifts for your rich friends_. It brings Greg some comfort to realize he’s obviously not alone in his plight.

Of course, there’s the budget restriction, too. Greg _would_ mortgage his soul, but there just aren’t that many takers for the soul of a grizzled, slightly boring cop who’s nearing his fiftieth. The one party that has shown interest already has Greg, soul _and_ body.

But Greg has a practical head on his shoulders, and what he lacks in creative thinking he more than compensates for in good old providence. He knows that buying Mycroft an exorbitant present would drain his own pockets for the foreseeable future. And with his job, Greg doesn’t know when his future might arrive or what it might look like. It might be a bit sudden or earlier than expected, might bring an injury or some other form of incapacity. More immediately, however, if Greg were in debt he wouldn’t be able to pay for anything that he and Mycroft do together—which in turn could put a serious strain on their relationship.

If it were only, say, eating out, they’d just stay in for a few years. But there are other gifts, too, or just buying Mycroft a CD or a DVD on a whim, or booking a short break to somewhere fancy—

Ha!

Greg’s gone too far out of his comfort zone, it seems; he’s begun thinking like a marketing target, like the Christmas industry wants him to think. A short break doesn’t have to be something you booked at the travel agency on the telly adverts, where nice-but-not- _too_ -attractive girls greeted you like nothing in the world could erase their smiles and sent you to a place with perfect linens.

Greg pops out of the office for a cigarette break—he isn’t seeing Mycroft today, and the only good thing about it is that he can sneak a quick fag—and makes a couple of phone calls.

***

It’s been a thoroughly great Christmas, fucking fantastic. First, spending Christmas Eve together and eating for England—Mycroft included, admittedly only after Greg pointed that all the excess weight they both put on would have to be burnt off by strenuous sex. Then sleeping next to each other all night, still as wooden planks, and so warm. And finally this morning. They spent some time in the bathroom, ate a light breakfast, then returned to bed with the single purpose of having some of that strenuous sex. Greg doesn’t want to think what his Catholic grandmother would have said about him starting this particular day with a long, drawn-out, delicious act of buggery. Nor about the enthusiastic blowjob he gave Mycroft until Mycroft added insult to injury by moaning the name of Christ’s father in a coarse voice. From where Greg was standing—or rather, from where he was lying between Mycroft’s legs—it was all an act of love and intimacy so profound, it sometimes made him want to cry. So that sorted _that_ out, then.

Once they’ve rested Mycroft is the first to say, “Shall we exchange gifts now?”

Greg lifts, excitement flooding him like it hasn’t for decades. The best part is that only half of it is on account of eagerness to get his present. (That on its own is so…forgotten. He was in his twenties the last time he was looking forward to receiving a gift: a proper gift, a gift that was thought through, that was for him _especially_ —like he’s sure Mycroft’s is.) Mycroft’s lips stretch until his eyes become two slits of mirth.

“I’ll go first,” he says.

He doesn’t leave the bed, though. He only swivels to one side to open the drawer of his bedside table, from which he withdraws two small packages. The first one is just tiny. Greg’s curiosity gets the better of him and he reaches for that one, but Mycroft stops his hand.

“Open that one next,” he says. “This one is the real present; that one is symbolic. You’ll see.”

Greg obediently takes the bigger package and unwraps it messily, then looks at the torn festive paper and the ribbons he’d knotted in his impatience. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “They were so nicely done and I—”

“No matter,” Mycroft interrupts. “Just have a look.”

Greg opens the small black box.

“Wow,” he utters, unable to help himself. “That’s…really great. Thank you!”

Mycroft scans his face quickly, then squints like a cat that’s just been scratched behind the ear.

“You’re welcome,” he says, and suddenly leans forward for a quick kiss on the mouth. Greg drops his gorgeous—and likely ridiculously expensive—new watch on the sheets and holds Mycroft’s head with both of his hands, kisses his mouth once, twice, three times.

“Do you like it?” Mycroft asks, slightly flushed. “You don’t think it’s too vulgar for a present?”

Greg laughs. “You couldn’t do vulgar even if you tried. It’s great. Thank you.”

It _is_ great. Nothing flashy, very tasteful, feels light on the wrist. It looks special without being even a touch ostentatious. It’s also probably the most luxurious thing Greg’s ever owned.

He’s admiring his new present when he looks up sharply, remembering the second box.

“May I now?” he asks. Mycroft nods.

Greg deals with the wrapping a bit more delicately this time, and finds a white cardboard box. He opens it and inside, on a plain piece of foam, lies a single key.

“I’ll give you the security code,” Mycroft says.

Greg lifts his head and meets Mycroft’s eyes to find them wider than he’s ever seen them, even on that night in Brighton. This time he is the one to lean in for a kiss.

“Thank you,” he says. “That’s—Um. Thanks.”

They slowly grin at each other.

“I’ll give you a key from mine, just for posterity—I know you can get in anyway.” Greg’s smile stretches to his ears.

It’s Mycroft’s turn to laugh. “But I should very much like to be invited on a permanent basis.”

Greg looks down at his watch again, then rubs the outline of the key. He’ll attach it to his key-ring right now, he will.

He gets up, turns to find his trousers—and stops, thunder-struck.

“Oh, bugger—sorry! Your gift!”

Mycroft starts mumbling something but Greg shakes his head and sits back down on the mattress. Mycroft’s watching him expectantly; Greg indulges himself for a moment, thinks that the glimmer of a small boy he catches is extremely fetching. Then he clears his throat.

“Um, I don’t have a gift as such. I mean, it’s not anything material, although now I want to punch myself, because I could have got you something, like—I don’t know, something to keep, but—”

“Gregory,” Mycroft says seriously. Greg closes his mouth.

“I’m sure whatever you’ve chosen as a present will be wonderful,” Mycroft says.

Greg really hopes so, what with the key…

“I’ve booked us for a New Year’s break,” he says, then hurries to explain that it’s no ordinary break he has in mind. “It’s this place where I grew up, in Somerset. There’s no road to it—you just walk for half a mile from the main road, and there are only fields on both sides…It’s a pub. Well, they call it a Bed and Breakfast, but they only have a single room, really. It’s tiny—the pub, I mean, but the room, too. But it’s really nice, sort of cosy.”

Mycroft is watching him, face blank. Greg knows he doesn’t do it on purpose, but it still makes him uneasy, now more than ever. He doesn’t think he’s explaining the present well enough.

“It’s the first pub I went to as a lad, with my dad and my granddad. It’s beautiful there, Mycroft, and often there’s proper snow this time of year. And it’s only local people who know each other but everyone minds their business. I always go there when I visit, and there’s no mobile reception, no internet, nothing. I thought—” He looks at Mycroft, whose expression is still as deadpan as it was a minute ago.

“I was there when I thought about—You know, you. Us. For the first time, I mean. I had three pints of lager.” Greg scratches his neck, embarrassed as usual at talking about this stuff. Funny how being buried in Mycroft doesn’t faze him one bit, but this…

Mycroft leans forward and gives him a quick peck on the lips, doesn’t pull his face away.

“That is wonderful,” he says. “Thank you.” His breath plays over the tips of Greg’s stubble like breeze over the tips of the wheat. Greg kisses him back, relieved. Now that his present has been accepted gladly, he finds his tongue untied.

“I can’t wait to take you there, you know. It’s so beautiful and quiet, it’s like—I can just walk to the pub and back and feel like I’ve got five years shaved off. I used to love going there with my old man. We’d walk for nearly two miles, come rain, come shine, and there’d be the hills on the right and the houses of our village to the left, and just fields and fields, and the sky. Very peaceful. There’s an old well—That was my favourite spot, right in the middle of the walk. It used to be open and there was a bucket there, always, so people would stop and have a drink of water. They closed it, though; I don’t know what happened…”

Greg gazes somewhere behind Mycroft, transported in time and place. It was bad enough it had been the first year they’d gone to the pub on Boxing Day without Granddad, but the well had been shut, too, with a big concrete slab, the bucket gone.

He blinks and Mycroft’s face comes into focus. Mycroft is watching him carefully and Greg scolds himself, lifts the drooping corners of his mouth.

“I still love it,” he clarifies. “I hope you will, too. I wanted—Well, I thought we can just be there, the two of us, for a couple of days and no one will bother y—us.”

Mycroft hums in agreement, then purses his lips.

“Perhaps we can go to your home, too?” he says, hand lifting to run through his own hair, arrange it neatly.

Greg freezes for a second, stupefied not so much by the suggestion but by the fact that he had managed so _thoroughly_ to avoid making it himself. Well, if you don’t ask the question…

He squeezes Mycroft’s shoulder and nods, slowly smiling.

~o~o~

Greg is just putting a spare pair of warm socks into his rucksack when he hears the key at the front door. He casts a glance at his new watch and hopes everything is okay—Mycroft is fifteen minutes early, and it’s not like the man has a lot of free time. Not that Greg is complaining. He understands in general, and even more at the moment—Mycroft might have not shown it, but Greg knows it’s highly unusual for him to be missing from his office for two entire days with no means of being contacted besides a helicopter.

Greg can’t help but smile at the image of the few locals, having their quiet drink in the middle of rural Somerset and seeing a helicopter land in the field next to the pub.

“Everything all right?” he calls when he hears Mycroft’s steps. “I’m in the bedroom.”

Mycroft doesn’t call back, of course—that would be like _shouting_ —but he appears at the door frame in twenty seconds.

“Hi,” Greg says, giving him a once over. Everything seems fine, as much as he can rely on reading Mycroft accurately. They don’t talk about Mycroft’s work in detail but Greg is sure that every month some poor body-language expert tears his certificates to pieces after a diplomat or a businessman (or a shadowy figure whose name no one knows) calls to say they were utterly unable to make heads or tails of this one man.

“Everything’s fine,” Mycroft confirms. “I just wanted to give you something before we left.”

“Okay,” Greg says, curious. He tucks the socks in deeper so that they don’t get caught by the zipper, which he pulls closed before dropping the rucksack on the floor. He turns to Mycroft, eyebrows raised.

Mycroft smoothly slides his right hand into his inner coat pocket—A fancy coat! After the argument, still not a proper parka, but a coat, as if they’re going to stroll down Burlington Arcade and not the C roads of the English countryside!—and produces a neatly folded piece of paper. He straightens some invisible creases on it and stretches out his hand.

Greg walks over and lowers Mycroft’s hand, kissing him and simultaneously slipping the paper out of his fingers.

He opens it.

It looks like an official document that has something to do with property. Greg starts reading, catches his name, frowns, continues…

He lifts his eyes to Mycroft, confused.

“Why is it—What is this?” he asks.

“It’s a deed for your newly acquired land.” Mycroft’s voice is even.

Greg frowns further. “What—How did I acquire it?”

“I bought it for you.”

Right.

Greg could ask any number of questions at this point, but he feels there is always a central one when it comes to a man: his motives.

“Why?” he asks.

Mycroft leans on the doorframe and Greg sees a look of uncertainty creep up onto his face.

“It’s a belated Christmas present,” Mycroft says. “I realized I had overestimated the value of material gift-giving at Christmas and decided to rectify that.”

“By buying me some random land?” Greg isn’t sure if he should be pissed off, amused, or grateful.

Mycroft’s quiet for a few long seconds before he answers.

“It’s not random,” he says at last. “It’s really very small and has virtually no financial value.” He pauses, then finishes softly. “It’s the well. It’s yours now.”

Greg feels his bottom jaw slacken. He glances at the document in his hand, eyes running over letters that look like bare, dark tree branches against the white of a snow-covered hill. He lifts his head to meet Mycroft’s keen eyes.

“Say you accept it,” Mycroft says.

Greg laughs and pulls him into a hug.

“Of course I accept it!” His eyes close as he presses into Mycroft’s body and feels hands on his back. He inhales Mycroft’s hair and neck, squeezes him—What is this man, headed into the wilderness with his posh aftershave and his immaculate coat? With his impossible connections, his means to do things? And with his brain, his bloody amazing brain that isn’t even a smidgen as clinical as Greg had thought it would be…

Mycroft makes some sounds by his ear and gently tries to disentangle himself, but Greg keeps him squashed.

“Greg?” Mycroft says, holding him again.

Greg breathes in a few times; eventually manages to speak.

“Just give us a sec,” he murmurs, throat tight, and doesn’t let go.

 


End file.
